In 1961, 23-year-old Michael Rockefeller traveled to Papua to pursue a career in anthropology and escape the silver straitjacket that came from being the son of New York governor Nelson Rockefeller. After his dugout canoe swamped in the Arafura Sea, he went missing. Almost 50 years later, reporter Tim Sohn and a film crew ventured to Papua to investigate whether he drowned, was eaten by cannibals, or survived to live Kurtz-like in a remote village.

I’ve never been a big TV watcher. While we were growing up, my mom used to limit us to something like “Sesame Street only!” No weekday cartoons. No cable. None of it. Sometime when I was in highschool she caved. But by that time I’d been bread with a certain distaste for television and particularly the clamorous advertising that goes with it.

Then along come ad-free TV dramas on DVD. It started with a LOST watching marathon last year. Then came Deadwood (still the best show ever). Then this past winter we ran the table on The Wire. And now, our newest obsession: Mad Men.

The art direction, the acting, the subject matter. All amazing. So utterly 1960. To watch it is to ponder my grandparents generation, that strange time just before the profound cultural revolution of my parents age. You can feel the repressed angst boiling under the surface in every episode. I love it. That tension drives the whole plot deeper and more exciting and more complex than it might otherwise in less skilled hands. So subtle. So brilliant.

Audrey’s going to laugh that I posted the photo above. That’s Joan Holloway, the office manager at Sterling Cooper. I have a huge crush on her.